Maya Raichoora | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:08Maya, thank you for joining me. Thank you. I'm very excited. Me too. Tell me, who's Maya Raijura? I think I'm constantly changing, I'd say. But at the moment, I'm like monk mode. So I'm very more introverted at the moment. I'm feeling quite aligned, but I'm also like entering a new, I think, stage of my life. So I guess I'm just honouring and embracing the change. That's where I'm at the moment. So a little bit of a monk mode, but yeah, that's why. a lot of change coming right on the cusp of releasing your book yes the book so professionally there's obviously like a massive change and I think I know I've never done it before I think it's just about staying really focused on what like the bigger goal is the bigger mission how you get there will change and new things will come surprising things but I think yeah as long as there's laser focus on what the big mission is that's what's key I love that take me back to a younger Maya so I want to know the kind of who and the why early inspirations and I want to cover what happened to you at 15 years old as well I mean I'm still very young no I'm kidding I'm yeah so when I was young I I've just always been very high performing and like you know what people call like high achievers that was me I'm also you know when you're from a South Asian family naturally there are some expectations where you know you've got to get good grades you tend to have a route of going into finance or law or something like that or medicine.

1:36Was there pressure on you to do that as well? Never like active pressure. I think it was more societal pressure. Like, you know, all my friends or family around me had done that. So it was kind of like a silent expectation. But you obviously do internalise that, right? And everyone was very clever around me. But then it pushed me to also do that. So that was great. And then a big part of it was I was also a sportswoman. So I played badminton for my county. then nationally as well. So I was training like five, six times a week. And that really was the thing I wanted to take forward. And then yeah, about 15 years old, life was actually amazing.

2:14Like I was, I was like getting to my peak at this point. And started just developing some constipation and like, just a little bit of pain in my stomach. Didn't think too much of it. So you know, you just go to the doctor, they kind of say like, okay, there's maybe a little bit of inflammation or things like that so we just monitor it um but things were just getting like a lot worse so went back and I was um put into like a colonoscopy so you know just to check what was going on inside and then was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis um which really when I found out it kind of like it didn't phase me then because I was like okay I'm a positive young girl like the doctors were like actually people live with this quite often um and i'm pretty sure it's like one every half an hour one person gets diagnosed with either crohn's or colitis so it's quite prominent so i kind of like took it on my chin but i never changed anything in my life i kept doing what i was doing same sort of routines etc this is healthy lifestyle right if you're playing badminton at the national level then you are keeping fit you're eating well and Yeah, I had a good life and I was careful about those sort of things, just worse and worse and worse.

3:30To the point that basically I'd have these flares and flares would last maybe four months. And what it would be is I would be going to the loo maybe 20, 30 times a day. But it's just pure like blood. Basically, you are like you are screaming for your life. You can't even scream because of how like paralyzing it is. and then when you're not in the physical pain you're just fearing when it next comes so every time I would drink water or even like try and put a little bit of food in my mouth immediately my body would just be in pain and so there was just this like I can't even explain what what it did to my body but it was it felt animalistic like it felt that I had no control over it it actually felt like the pain was so much bigger than my body which is why like I just couldn't control anything and then of course mentally it just breaks a young girl like that and I was someone who had so much fire joy excitement for the world goals hopes dreams just all went it all went not because of me but because actually I was looking at my reality and long story short is you know this went on for maybe like four or five years so so many hospital visits so many medications surgery like you know you need to do you need to take your colon out and I'm just like you're 17 what do you say what do you do couldn't go to university it wore you down ultimately all that positivity you're just being you're sort of being funneled into a place where you can't do what you wanted to do you can't follow the dreams right yeah I was and it got to a point where like I didn't want to fight anymore I just was like I've been strong yes I'm a resilient person and Everyone be like to me, oh my God, Maya, you're so strong.

5:21You can do it. I was like, I just don't want to. I'm so tired of being strong. I don't want to keep fighting. And I had so much peace with that. I really did, because why would I want to go through this again and again? It really, genuinely, it broke me in every way possible. And I just didn't see any way out of it at all. Like, at all. And even if I think back to it now, it feels so scary that I was in that position. So what got you out of it? What got you through it? Because the Maya I know, you've got a huge social following now where you would just exude positivity. You inspire people. You give amazing information out to get people through the day, if you like.

6:04What did 17-year-old Maya do to get through it? There's obviously a combination of things, right? Like there's support from all areas, whether it's, you know, diet, lifestyle, etc. But the thing that I can honestly say changed the trajectory of my life was my mind. It was really how I was using my mind, the thoughts I was thinking, the emotions I was feeling. And you know why this is important is because, you know, you mentioned like, Bamaia, you had like quite a healthy lifestyle. And I did. I was playing sport. I was eating well. It really does show that the emotions and the thoughts and your mindset really do have a massive role to play in your health and just general like your mindset, your well-being, your whatever it might be.

6:55So for me, a really big thing was in hospital, I started to learn visualization, which is it's basically mental imagery. Now, a lot of athletes will use this, you know, famous people like Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, Serena Williams. They all talk about it, but it's never really something anyone else talks about. It's always in the elite circles in sports or performance. But I initially used it to try and remember and learn and practice how to walk again. So I was doing it. I was mentally rehearsing what it would feel like to just be a bit more human, to like see myself walking, eventually running, even actually seeing myself at uni.

7:37Now, of course, at the beginning, it just felt a bit like wishful thinking. And it's only in hindsight do I realize that when you're repeating those images, you are actually training your brain to align to that, to actually go for that as a goal and to, you know, help your brain and body actually do it and like make it happen. And you taught yourself when you say you're in hospital. So was there a book? Was there someone that gave? No. So something changed in you where you went from not caring to then actually wanting to pull yourself out. And then that's where you understood the power of this, right?

8:10It was actually a nurse. She kind of came into my room and was like, she could see I was so just done. And everyone had just got their uni results. And I'd even got into uni, but I couldn't go. And she was like, Maya, if you weren't in hospital here, like, where would you be? And I was so angry that she asked me that because this was my reality. Why would you even ask me a question like that? It was cruel. Yeah, I was so annoyed. I even told her, just, can you leave my room? But then I guess I had nothing to lose. And I do remember, it was only two minutes. I closed my eyes and that's when I first saw, like actually where would I be?

8:43And all I saw was I just, I was walking. That's all I was doing. And it's not that I suddenly was positive. It showed me that there could be another possibility. And you know, I think we really underestimate the power of hope. So I don't think hope is being extra, extra positive or like, you know, being like crazy optimistic. I think hope reminds humans that there has to be and there is a way through. It's not to say it's going to be easy and it's going to be all like yay and fun. But hope can be such an amazing thing to be like, what if? Like, what if you actually didn't have to stay in hospital all your life?

9:25What if that could be your future? What if you could go to uni? whereas the whole time everyone was kind of saying you know unfortunately you will be ill all your life unfortunately you can't go to hospital so I was saying you know the opposite of that and you'd been told that just to be clear so this was because from your story point of view it was sort of two three four years of this but then you came out of it had you been told this is your life now were you in a position where actually my ad this this is how it's going to be for you yeah because the first thing they tell you it's incurable the first thing I think that's such a dangerous word because your mind sticks to it it's like oh my gosh I can never get rid of this thing so especially when you're young so yes and because it happened now nine ten times I was like this is my reality.

10:10Hence feeling broken so from that moment where almost like that maybe maybe it's the wrong way but a trigger from the nurse to then start visualizing what was the journey from you then starting to visualize Maya walking to doing the things that you want to do to then dare I say a moment where that overlapped with you actually curing from the physical um yeah physical scenario yeah one thing i will say i'm obviously like um i am careful with the language around illness because like i'm you know i'm never going to say like this completely healed me or i'm cured like at the end of the day all i'll say is i'm like the happiest and healthiest i've ever been and no i don't have symptoms which is amazing for me right considering where you were right exactly Now, that journey was interesting because when I left hospital, you know, I kind of just, I asked myself, well, why did my mind help me in that situation?

11:06Like, why was I able to actually see something and then actually do it? And that's when I guess I started researching my own things. I was, you know, looking at mental imagery. I was looking at the words visualization. I also trained with my own visualization teacher who was helping me also explore different ways of using it. But really, it was just and I'm going to use this word like purposefully. It was obsession. It was pure obsession in that topic. It wasn't just passion. It was like I am obsessed with how powerful this thing really is. And I would practice every day, every day because I wasn't at uni.

11:42So I literally had all the time in the world. I was still obviously in pain and in symptoms and I had to you know it wasn't easy but I could see changes happening which is why I just dedicated everything to being like let me learn all there is to learn about visualization and what I guess I found was just incredible. Can you elaborate because I find this fascinating there's there's a fine line between manifesting if you like and visualization i'd love you to explain that because for me and if if i can see something i'd like to achieve and and using your analogy that i cannot walk and be about walk about naturally now and i want to be able to walk the journey from visualizing that's all mental to then the steps you put in place to actually and the behaviors and the habits you put in place to actually get to that point where you're walking i'd love to know about that and almost your sort of difference between been manifesting I'm going to do this I'm going to make this happen as well as just visualizing it thinking about it yeah so I love this question you know when I was first visualizing walking it wasn't actually just seeing myself doing it the thing so I actually didn't learn this through like manifestation for me I was actually mentally rehearsing the process of work of walking I was like I was remembering what it would feel like to move my legs.

13:05So it's nothing to do with like the outcome. I wasn't seeing myself walking perfectly. I was simply using process visualization to get better at walking. That is simply it. Now, if I look at, so manifestation as a whole is this yes idea that when you can see something in your mind, you can make it happen. Visualization, I think it's very important to see as a neurological mental training technique. Now, I think that's important because the way you frame something will change how often you do it. Now, do we ever say that Michael Phelps manifested 26 golden medals? Would we ever say that? No, but he used visualization every day.

13:45Now, there are five types. Outcome. This is when you're seeing the end result in your mind. So that is most linked to manifestation because you're seeing the goal, what it feels like, and And that can really improve your beliefs, your confidence, overcome doubt. Number two, process visualization. Nothing about the outcome. So nothing about manifestation. This is simply, how can I improve a task or an activity by mentally rehearsing it? So that's why athletes will mentally rehearse their swing. They might see literally how their arms move when they're swimming. And this one is very much like you're looking at your movements.

14:22It's nothing to do with the bigger picture. Negative visualization. What if something goes wrong? So Michael Phelps did this one where he would actually, his coach made him imagine his goggles filling up with water and what he would do. So in his visualization, he would respond. And then in Beijing, it happened. And in the interview after, people were like, how did you win and get the world record? And you literally swam 75 % of that race completely blind. and he was like because I visualized that scenario so many times so when it did happen you know a lot of us would be like oh my god should I take them off should I like keep going he didn't have to worry about that at all he was prepared he knew mentally exactly so negative um then we have creative one of my favorites this is this really comes from medicine it comes from the placebo effect where you're using visualization and mental imagery to make emotions sensations pain tangible.

15:20So like, for example, instead of just being like, okay, I feel anxious, and then not doing anything about it, I'd ask you, well, where are you feeling anxious? And you might say my gut. I'd be like, what does it look like in the body? And you might say, it's like this heat, it's like a red fire. And then we'd use your imagination to pour water on it, to slowly allow that to release and heal. And therefore, you can actually manage your anxiety better. And then lastly, is explorative visualization. This is very undocumented and unknown. It's what the likes of Walt Disney, Einstein, Nikola Tesla used to tap into a level of creativity that we can't in a conscious way.

15:58So when you look at it as, okay, there are five techniques, four of them are nothing to do with manifestation at all. They all train different areas of the brain and are helping you with different parts of the way you think, feel and perform. And I do believe that language is very important because visualization is part of your mental fitness just like you go for walks go to the gym treat it like that and you will get the benefits this is a key thing for your mental fitness right and and the kind of aspirations to be the nike of most things you put a you put branding to something that you could argue we all should really be striving to try and achieve right but actually there's a there's a you know a real sort of ambition that there and coming from lived experience you know thank you for taking the time to elaborate and explain on that because not only did you get yourself walking and live the life you're living now but you've become I guess an entrepreneur through that you've become a disruptor through that space if you like I want to know about that journey so this obsession and this desire to crave information from your own experience to then bringing that into effectively a business and then how successfully been with that I want to know that journey I want to know when you kind of had something we think actually I can do something with this to help others from my own experience.

17:12I guess I never had the plan to do this. And really, I kept the illness and what I was going through a secret for at least six years. Only my immediate family knew, not even my extended family. Why? Because I was so ashamed. I was so ashamed. Think about it, like, you know, 15, 16-year-old girls. you think they're gonna enjoy talking about going to the loo being in pain like this is when everyone's like meeting boys for the first time I was so embarrassed and ashamed and it was so isolating so sharing my story to anyone let alone online was like not an easy decision I was so scared because I thought I'd be judged people wouldn't like me they'd be like oh that's so weird and you know I was like wearing adult nappies things like that I had to admit all these things it felt like I'd been holding a secret for so long so I remember when it was it was this particular year in uni during Covid actually where I just felt like I had been hiding so much of who I was um and I didn't know what to do about it and I remember just one day pressing like record on Instagram and I just said it I was like I have never said this to anyone before but I basically was diagnosed with xyz and I just basically explained my story for about nine minutes a weird thing happened where I guess like obviously there was a lot of sympathy and it's like oh I never knew about this but then like nothing actually did nothing changed like that but then I asked myself I was like well I know that sharing that helped one other person and I was like well maybe if I share it a bit more it could help another person or just a third person very selfless yeah and I just kind of kept doing that and do you know what it was I wish I wish I had someone when I was going through something like that I just wish like that information was available to me I just can't even explain it would have saved my life way earlier even when I was younger I wish I had that to know that you have control over your brain and you can actually wire it and change it oh that would have been amazing you're that person there right well I mean I I can say that to you I you know there's no arrogance about you in the slightest but I guess you know you've you've built a platform a community an audience that uh you know I have to go on my LinkedIn to put a post out and then see that you put something out and there are people that want to be part of that.

19:59You're putting stuff out from that lived experience and that makes you the role model, makes you the person that wasn't there when, dare I say, you needed it. And that must have resonated with so many people for that to have blown up in the right sense. And I guess, you know, going back to that, you know, when you started to put information out and be more vulnerable, did that happen quite quickly? Because, you know, ultimately you've been able to scale and you're ruthlessly driven, ruthless is not the right word, but that obsession, that focus. And I want to bring that into that kind of elite mindset, if you like, because now the people you're working with that come to you, I want to sort of open up a little bit, you know, they're known sports stars, they're chief execs and C-suites of businesses that, dare I say, might already be operating at a very high level.

20:47And we had this chat off camera a couple of weeks ago, right, where someone that might not be world champion but can be, that's where you're working. I want to know how you got into that space. Yeah, you know, I once read this quote and I loved it. It was like, passionate people watch obsessed people change the world. And I really like it because it made me think like, let's just go all in. Let's go all in on it, see what can happen. And, you know, I obviously claim and say that I'm the UK's leading mental fitness expert. When I first did that, I obviously wasn't. It wasn't a thing. But I'm very like, I like being bold where I'm just like, let's do it.

21:28Let's say that you're going to do it and then make it happen. Visualization. Yeah, exactly. Now, what I find interesting about what you said is that mental fitness in itself is something that everyone needs, but they don't always know it. Now, if I look at why did I, why do I see this skill like working very well in like the elite space, et cetera. so you know like um how a water bottle in tesco it might be like i don't know one quid on the plane it might be like six quid i really looked at that because the skill of visualization for the mainstream people it's like okay it's nice to have for them when they're going from good to great it is an absolute must if they do not have it like you are at a massive disadvantage Now, I love the balance of working with some of the best minds in the world, combined with making it accessible to more people, because I continue to learn and I can continue to share.

22:27Now, I think the really important thing is, is that for so long, because visualisation has been accessible to only the elite stars, I'm like, you know, it needs to be for more people. But what I found is that athletes who are much younger, or are coming into the scene have no idea about it because we were never taught to train the mind. And I look at tennis players. I look at runners. They all have physical coaches. But then if you actually hear what athletes say when they win, 90 % of mind game. Yeah, none of their training is. And it's because the best in the world knew that, so they had their coaches.

23:04And look, I'm not there to force people, but if someone's like, no, Maya, I want to be a champion, then I'll help you because you have to want that. you have to have that fire you have to have that like I want to do what others aren't prepared to do that's where I come in that's brilliant what would you say to someone that's watching or listening that says I don't need that you know I'm in amazing physical shape and I'm you know I know what I want to achieve and so on so why why could you help me what would you do to help me what would you say to that if you stopped working out let's say you would probably maybe gain some weight you'd get a bit weaker same thing if you're feeling amazing love that how do we maintain that?

23:41Because you know, all of us, we're human, we're all going to experience mental weakness. It may not be mental illness, but mental weakness we all do. Even I do, right? I'm sometimes wake up a bit fuzzy, not as like, you know, not as focused, not as high performing. In those moments, do you know what to do to train your brain back, to make it sharper? And you know what I loved? So I want to give you a slight analogy here. What if you had to pay for your mind? What if you actually had to pay a subscription to use your mind? Wouldn't you make it the sharpest and most like, you know, best and high performing version it could be?

24:21You would, right? Especially if you could pay more to fine tune it. Exactly. But we just get it. We just have it, right? We have this like trillion dollar computer in our heads we take it for granted massively but if you think okay but if I was paying for this I'd invest in it way more and sometimes let's just plant that seed and think if you want that champion mindset whether that means managing your emotions better achieving your goals being a kinder mother it can be anything like why not give yourself the best chance to make it happen I love that without naming anyone can you give me an example of someone you've worked with where there's been a huge transformation and almost kind of why and then just elaborating on the kind of person that comes to you i'll kind of give it in well do you know what there's a really common theme that people who are in these like very high profile positions whether you are a premiership footballer or you might be a c like ceo of a company um they all appear very confident but gosh you know internally they're also saying the same things we do like i shouldn't be here do i deserve to be here what if i can't do it yeah imposter syndrome is a big one or like actually lacking belief and in fact there was a study that came out that said that athletes the number one thing that they are struggling with is confidence isn't that amazing that you're on the world stage and yet we still suffer with that so I love I love teaching and it's the first thing I do with everyone is the character visualization your Batman effect so people like Kobe Bryant even people like Serena Williams they all use this where it's like when I step on court, when I step on that pitch, who do I want to be?

25:58Forget about what I need to do, who do I want to be? And I worked with a footballer when he was in the Euros, and so this was last year, and I gave him this recording where before he would go on to pitch, he would listen to it, just five minutes, and it would ask him to create the character in his mind, connect to it, become it watch how he walks onto the pitch watch how he speaks to other people and then eventually how he plays as well and he said to me after he was like Maya I have never ever been able to get to that zone before ever and I was like that's amazing and that can be translated into my life into your life into the CEOs I work with so character visualization is a great way to get started it really can build up your identity it's great because you get the fulfillment of you knowing you helped there and then you can literally have that feedback from someone that was already performing well that's now yeah now going higher yeah you know I was once speaking to this um Olympic skier and I was like oh yeah like you know those seconds really matter she's like no Maya it's like 0.00 like zero one seconds that matter that is what will make you a champion or not so really any of those tiny 1 % or 0.1 % you're doing, they do make a difference.

27:16They really do. They compound. I want to talk, coming back to you actually, and something about that, the way you described self-belief there makes me think of my two girls growing up, 13 and 15 year old girls growing up in a world full of social media that creates judgment, fear of being judged, bullying at school. And that could be just from putting a video out about themselves or singing, which of course is in the true sense of what you did which has been vulnerable a lot of um adults and children do not want to do that now because of this culture i want to know almost sort of what advice you'd give to whether it's my girls or someone watching that's locked up in that space is listening and watching to you now going from where you were that you described how afraid you were to then being vulnerable building the habits around that to actually this i'm embracing this and you can tell, again, without being any arrogance at all, you're content and very, very happy to be yourself now, not holding anything in.

28:11What advice would you give to someone that actually wants to let themselves out but feels trapped? I'll give two answers to this. I think self-belief is genuinely a full-time job. Like, I don't think it's easy. I think it's a feeling. It's also a practice. It's also discipline. There are going to be some days you genuinely don't believe in yourself, but can And you do one tiny thing that at least can add to it, that you can actually feel, no, you know what? I did this today. Tiny thing. The second thing that has genuinely really helped me is I think we live in a world where there are two types of people, prey and then predators.

28:46Now, prey look at the animal kingdom. They've got eyes on the side of their heads. So they're always looking for danger. And in our world, it's like we're looking for the likes. We're looking, will people care? Will people like me? Will they judge me? you're kind of playing the game of life so that you don't lose. You're always in danger. Then you've got the predators. They've got eyes on the front of their heads. They're like, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to have laser focus and I'm going to strike. And if you think of like a lion, does a lion get every single deer or zebra that it goes for?

29:23Does it? No. Does it make it any less of a lion? No. In fact, Federer said that, right? He was like in that speech he did at the university, he was like, you know, I lost 50 % of my rallies, but I won the ones that counted. So I love this predator mindset. And he moved on as well, didn't he? That was the thing. He didn't look back and go, I missed that, dear. Exactly. Whereas we don't do that. So I love this predator mindset to be like, you know what? Let me shoot my shot. Let's go for it. Let's put that video online of me playing the guitar. Let's go and tell this person, you know what? Let's start this business.

29:57Yeah, it might fail. But the most dangerous opponents are the ones who aren't afraid to lose. And I think going with that mindset of like, let's just gamify life a bit, like a video game, level up, level down. It's like snakes and ladders kind of thing. I think we then can let go of this thing of, well, what if we don't get there? And instead you're like, but I tried. That's what I love about The Predator. Almost like you've been living from that, especially from a 15 year old Maya onwards, you've almost been living in a bit of an experiment. Because you've had to. You went from a place where, is this it?

30:26So then why don't I try this? And you've seen the results. And now you've turned that into really quite a successful business. Sitting here now with the book coming, you set out to be the Nike, and we must cover that, the Nike Mental Health and Mental Fitness, to then actually have these moments with Nike. But sitting here now, what is your definition of success? Success to me is, and I'm a little bit biased, but success to me is my health. my mental my physical and my emotional health because the thing I learned is that if you do not work nothing else will your dreams won't your relationships won't your businesses won't so that is always my fundamental value is my health and even today I will never sacrifice my health for my work or for people no it is the number one thing that I will put ahead and it's like you know it's like we have you'll have like I don't know what that word is or that saying is where you have like a thousand problems until you get sick then you literally have one problem and that is what happened yeah and so now to me non-negotiable for you so what do you do to prioritize your health so there's um there's maybe a morning routine there's certain things that you swear by that that work for you and you'd have found them over this this this period of time to refine I guess to you know sort of what you're doing daily what are those things you're doing both mentally and physically?

31:51Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty intuitive. I mean, look, diet wise, I eat whole foods, very clean, 80-20. You know, sometimes, yeah, I have some chocolate, don't mind. But I love that. I feel good about it. Two, always, yeah, move my body. I always say, do three things. One thing for your body, one thing for your mind, one thing for your soul, every day. And by feel soul, I mean also play, read, connect. Have some fun. Have some fun. Yeah, exactly. For the mind, I absolutely do meditation and visualization. And then for the body, yeah, I like to dance. I like to run. I play a lot of racket sports still, which is amazing.

32:24So I'm not like crazy strict on myself. I'm not like a marathon runner. But you know what? I, yeah, I care about it. What about that sort of morning routine? You're a successful business woman now, right? So there's a whole thing that goes with the win the morning, win the day, you know, get up early. Do you conform to that? Yeah. Well, so I wake up, first thing, headphones in and I just dance. I just dance because when you're sleeping, you know, you take your whole day with you so when you wake up you literally hold on to that so I literally shake it off I just shake off everything and I feel so good then I'll do my visualizations then I'll probably read or journal and then that's it and then I carry on and and I love that it just primes me so well yeah I love that now let's talk about um Nike let's talk about that almost visualization of Maya you set your heart on that and I think we had a chat again a couple weeks ago where a lot of that is now visible to people that have followed you however long you know to to be like oh she's she's achieved what she wanted to but there's a huge amount of graft there and actually there's a real undertow of that all the way through this you know health takes effort entrepreneurship takes effort long days you know sleepless nights or you know lack of sleep if you like which you know the balance is always tricky i want to know how you've made that happen because i know there was a lot of i mentioned earlier about people coming to you but I know there's a lot of you going after as the predator, if you like.

33:46Yeah. So talk me through that. Exactly that. I've never lost the like kind of like old school entrepreneurs. I love like just go on a door and like knock on it and sell something. Right. I quite like that idea. And I think people think that, oh, because I've got a big following, it all comes to me. Honestly, the best things that have happened have been because I've gone for them. Now, Nike is a good example because it was actually in one of my visualizations that I always just saw this tick, like doing an event with them. and I was like cool planted a seed and here again this is not manifestation where then like okay I saw it and I do nothing about it so with that I basically emailed everyone from Nike that I could find like it was like 15 people no response kept doing it one more time literally nothing and then like as I was in London stuff like that I went into stores and I was like oh should we do an event things like that and they were like oh no you need to contact this person I was like okay back in that circle and then eventually like it was my sixth visit to a store and they maybe they were just being like look she needs to just like never come here again we'll do it so made that happen and we did this event um and then the whole team was like to me like why have we not done more of this and I was like thank you um so it started like that and then they actually called me back for like for more events.

35:05But then my work didn't stop there because I knew that to make real change, let's really become their first ever mental fitness trainer. Let's do it. They've never done it before. They have running trainers, yoga, but none of the mental fitness. And that then became my aim. And I was like, right, we're in a little bit now. We need to really talk to the right people. And at first it was like, oh, we don't really do that. We don't, we have mindfulness. I was like, yeah, no, I don't do that though. And then, you know, through the hard work through the conversations and through sharing the vision that was key like I truly believe I cannot do this on my own I can't and I want the right partners and people to join me and they are one of them um because you know if you look at any of their adverts what do they actually focus on it's the mindset it's not really about the running it's about the mindset and so I sold them this vision and yeah I guess you know then early no late last year was announced as their first ever mental fitness trainer and so now work with their athletes but also the community um and I couldn't be more prouder of it because I fully know that that took at least two and a half years to make happen and only some of that you can show on the socials and so on because there's so much behind the scenes the door knocking as you say right which is not necessarily visible what have you not done yet that you would love to achieve you know what's the the sort of next goals and other goals that go alongside that obviously I have like particular athletes or clients that I would love to work with not because of just who they are because I know I can help that's that's I think my toxic trait is I'm like when I see someone I'm like oh my god I know I could help you on this I'm like it just sticks with me so the background of my phone screen is me in front of like Wembley Stadium.

36:53And I really want to take one of my events to Wembley Stadium. I want to make mental fitness like the coolest kind of concert you've ever seen. That would be amazing. Yeah, so that's the aim. That's Maya Mental Fitness. What about Maya Raichou and Strictly Come Dancing? Yeah, so obviously, so I have three key goals in my life. One is Nike Mental Fitness. One, I want to open a sushi restaurant because I love sushi. and three yeah I want to go on and win Stringle Come Dancing yeah I just love it you heard it here yeah yeah like a good Argentine tango I think in the final so for it it'll be great you've got that predator eyes I felt it it's a massive vibe of you and I know how busy you are as well so it's a huge privilege and pleasure pleasure to be able to film with you today no thank you thank you for making time proper inspiration thank you thank you

37:46you